US and British jets launched an air raid yesterday on a surface-to-air missile site in southern Iraq, a Pentagon spokesman has said.
The strikes at 1.15 p.m. Irish time targeted the site, and its associated radar system, close to An-Nasiriwah, some 280 km south-east of Baghdad, according to the spokesman, Lieut Col David Lapan.
"The target was something that has been used by the Iraqis to threaten and fire at coalition aircraft," Lieut Col Lapan said. All the US and British jets returned safely to base, he added.
Last Friday, about 20 US warplanes struck three air-defence sites in southern Iraq, in response to recent anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile fire at coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone, according to the Pentagon.
One person was killed, and 11 were injured by the strike, according to Baghdad.
Three days earlier on August 7th, US forces ended a three-week lull in the strikes, launching the first one since July 17th.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, acknowledged recently Iraq has "quantitatively and qualitatively" improved its air defences since a major strike on February 16th.
President Bush last week tarred the Iraqi leader, Mr Saddam Hussein, as a global "menace" who must comply with UN arms inspectors. Iraq has recently made efforts to target US reconnaissance aircraft and has reiterated it will continue to challenge US-British overflights of its territory.
On July 19th, a US Navy E-2 Hawkeye radar surveillance aircraft reported an Iraqi surface-to-air missile exploded near it inside Kuwaiti airspace, Pentagon officials said.
An Iraqi surface-to-air missile nearly hit a high-flying U-2 spyplane over southern Iraq on July 24th, they said.
That was followed a week later by a sighting of an Iraqi surface-to-air missile in Saudi airspace, which was reported by a US pilot but discounted by Pentagon officials.
The reported actions have come amid a debate within the US administration over its Iraq strategy, including the policy of aggressively enforcing the no-fly zones to contain Iraq.
The United States and Britain have patrolled no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq since the 1990-91 Gulf War.
Some 354 people have been killed and 1,000 others injured since 1998 in the strikes, according to Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the volume of oil exported by Iraq under UN supervision fell to 13.9 million barrels last week, from 17 million the previous week, the office administering the UN oil-for-food programme said yesterday.
In the week ending August 10th, there were four loadings at Iraq's Gulf port of Mina al-Bakr and six at the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, the only export outlets authorised under the UN sanctions imposed in 1990.
Iraq has exported 65.6 million barrels of crude since July 4th, the start of the current phase of the programme. The phase is the 10th since the programme was established in December 1996 to enable Iraq to import essential goods under UN supervision.
